April 2010: The Reality Issue

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NOTTINGHAM • BIRMINGHAM • MANCHESTER • SHEFFIELD

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CONTENTS

VNTD Magazine owes a lot to technology. But it’s a scary thought that it only exists virtually; cast off into the vast blogosphere with a quick click of the exit button. So what is reality? The web is an intangible cave of priceless riches and useless junk but we rely so heavily on its contents. We wanted to investigate this dependency on the non-existent. Why do we entertain what we can not touch or feel?

The concept of reality has an enormous impact on our cultural ventures. In an effort to find out more, Alex Pashley compares the warnings laid down by 20th Century literary greats and we investigate the root of reality, linking everyday escapist entertainment with its philosophical connotations. Meanwhile, we explore the boundaries of virtual reality in a photographic re-enactment of popular game, The Sims featuring Hannah Whelan and Milly Stead.

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Finally, we explore the Nottingham Contemporary’s latest exhibit, Star City which blends Soviet ideology with a variety of art forms.

As always, VNTD Magazine welcomes all applicants for contribution. Please see the Contributors tab at the bottom of the website or feel free to email us at vntdmagazine@gmail.com

issue 03 april 2010 06. tit-bits interesting stuff

08. the absence of mind next chapter

14. mother,earth,sister,moon soviet fashion

16. orwell that ends well? contemporary dystopia

18. virtual reality? fact is stranger than fiction

26. escapism

COVER SHOT- APRIL 2010 HANNAH WHELAN AND MILLY STEAD IN VINTAGE

outer body experience

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ANGDOO.NET Amsterdam based animator/filmmaker/ creative genius Jin Angdoo Lee has an impressive portfolio. Commisioned for her beautifully simplistic visions and obvious technological prowess, Angdoo’s apt creative ability clearly sets her apart from most self-styled animators. Check out her creations at www.angdoo.net

KASTIANALLEE, BERLIN Okay, so it’s no Brick Lane but this is pathway through the German Capital a lively street in the Prenzlauer Berg district of East Berlin. Prater Berlin is the street’s most prominent restaurant and es. serves hearty traditional German dish There are plenty of quirky vintage shops in the vicinity as well as one-off cafes and tree lined avenues

TERRE D’HERMES STILLS GALLERY, EDINBURGH The classic TERRE D’HERMES is a pricier option than your regular aftershave. However, the woody, vegetal and mineral scents combine harmoniously to create a scent that is beautifully masculine. uk.Hermes.com

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The Stills Gallery opened in 1977 as Scotland’s first gallery to specialise solely in contemporary photography. Located in the centre of the vibrant city of Edinburgh, this gallery is a must see for all photography enthusiasts. The current exhibition is “The City and The Stars” opened this month and is well worth a look www.stills.org

LANVIN A/W 2010/11

CELINE A/W 2010/11

AQUASCUTUM A/W 2010/11

TIT-BITS

JILL SANDER A/W 2010/11

CHLOE A/W 2010/11

PRADA A/W 2010/11

A/W 2010/11 PREVIEW

interesting stuff from around the world

Designers go back to their roots in the coming season with simple, sturdy, well tailored pieces.

A camel jacket with a skinny belt from Chloe or Prada, a maxi skirt from Aquascutum or a double breasted jacket dress from Celine. It’s nice to see something besides evening wear from Lanvin too

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the absence of mind In reality, the mind is often a ghost town. An environment once populated with excitement, thought and well being. But overtime, the pathways break down. Roads are overgrown. Ideas deteriorate and cracks appear. Loneliness and isolation enters. A sense of fear and emptiness. The mind has been ransacked; looted of pride and presence. What is left is a shadow of its former self.

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Mother, Earth, Sister, Moon T

he Nottingham Contemporary Art Gallery is a vital addition to Nottingham’s cultural scene. Already armed with such nationally renowned venues as the Playhouse, Nottingham Castle Art Gallery and the Trent FM arena, with the addition of The Contemporary, Nottingham can now put itself at the forefront of cultural development in Britain’s regional cities. Having played host to the likes of David Hockney and Frances Stark in seasons past, The Contemporary is now the temporary home to the Star City exhibition, an aesthetic homage to Cold War perceptions of the future. Perhaps the most inescapable wonder of the

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exhibition was a giant inflated astronaut by the name of “MOTHER, EARTH,SISTER, MOON” which is an enormous homage to Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to venture forth into space. Inside its lofty tubes the space-age light installations illuminate the figures of models gliding past the audience and adorned in futuristic fashions some of which are reconstructions of actual garments and others that are new designs.

Masami Tomihisa’s abstract modernist classical tribute drowned the room in an eerie atmosphere more aptly applied to the opening sequence of a Soviet sci-fi than a fashion show. Indeed, it was Eastern European and Russian Science fiction films such as Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 “Solyaris” that were the inspiration for the outfits. The concept? A three dimensional moving exploration of Communist ideas, and promises of a utopian society.

PVC body suits sometimes panelled with white, yet at other times monochrome in tin-foil silver were paired with cosmonaut-esque boots. Shoulder pads were combined with structured crew neck collars.

The pockets were detailed with visible chunky stitching or clean crisp black lapels. The hair and makeup was impossibly, almost artificially perfect, the hair coiffed into quiffs, or buns growing like tumours from the front left of the head. The most striking look, a jade green shift dress with winged shoulder pads seemed so apt to theme but somehow still wearable. Having said this, the show was very much an art installation not a commercial fashion show and it is vital to view it as such.

Nottingham contemporary will be hosting the star city fashion shows until April 18th so hurry.

The shows are free to enter but booking is recommended.

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Orwell that ends Alex Pashley

‘‘A boot stamping on the human face – forever’’ is the chilling climax of George Orwell’s visionary Nineteen-eightyfour. A cautionary tale of the dangers of totalitarianism, nothing since has stood so horrifyingly visceral. With its draconian suppression of liberty secured through the government channels of thought police, extensive surveillance and mind control, Orwell, writing in 1949, had dire predictions for the future of society.

Alongside Orwell in the dystopian tradition, Aldous Huxley anticipated a similar inexorable fate for humanity in Brave New World, published some seventeen years earlier. Depicting a ‘world state’ ruled by a comparable authoritarian regime, the denial of liberty arrived not in the coercion of the people, but in their uniform social conditioning. Indoctrinated in their sleep and sustained on the intoxicant soma the masses are reduced to docility, imbibing all the slogans of the state. Information needn’t be censored to the quirks of Party ideology; the truth is instead drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

Both novels’ foresights of the downtrodden masses; either viciously whipped into conformity with Party rhetoric, or suspended in permanent satiation, blissfully unconscious to their oppression make harrowing works of great fiction. Their extreme symbolism and allegorical subtexts however, can be seen to render them largely inapplicable and utterly unrealis-

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tic with modern day society.

We may live in an age of surveillance more than ever before; our individual footsteps skulked by the faceless, metallic menace of CCTV cameras wherever we fear to tread.

Twenty-first century Britain is a smorgasbord of government bureaus and innumerable databases. From date of birth to last credit card purchase, highly sensitive details of every citizen are stored, vulnerable to potential abuse. At one’s fingertips phenomena such as Google Street View and Facebook have made a wealth of personal information available to the opportunistic burglar or white-gloved fraudster. Compared with days of yore when values of trust and honesty reigned, society is almost unrecognisable from its former self.

Despite the apparent parallels between today and the police state of Nineteen-eighty-four, to assert Britain to be in the throes of a wholesale ‘sleepwalking’ into Orwellian society is for the most part disingenuous nevertheless. Though civil liberties have been eroded to some degree the existence of CCTV cameras is seen to be a necessary evil. Widespread surveillance has curtailed crime in both successful prosecutions and in deterrence.

In a world now combating the shadowy threat of terrorism perhaps a slight boot mark to the face is to be accepted.

s well?

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VIRTUAL REALITY? modelled by Hannah Whelan and Milly Stead

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ESCAPISM How lighthearted cinematic entertainment has philosophical roots in reality

fritz lang’s METROPOLIS (1927) Is Escapism really a taboo? Naturally, one isn’t going to admit they prefer a fictional world to reality and risk a few concerned awkward glances from their peers. Addictions to synthetic realities such as Second Life suggests an unhealthy adversity to perhaps more unfavourable, real-life issues. (That Japanese bloke who recently married his favourite video game character didn’t exactly receive a sympathetic response.) Is this desire to delve deep into a fictitious environment really just for the socially inept? The overwhelming popularity of film, television and online media seems suggests otherwise.

In 2007, recession hit. Cinema is cheap escapism. Two hours of blissful immersion, a chance to forget and short lived happiness for £6. According to MPAA statistics for 2009, the number of films released in 2009 dropped by 12% from last year. This is clearly linked to the economic downturn hindering industry budgets. However, despite this dramatic drop in film production, movie attendance increased. Including figures attributed to popular 3D films, the US boosts a massive 10.1% increase in box office sales, which eventually surpassed $10 billion.

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Film has always been a medium in which to escape. Since Fritz Lang’s dramatic vision of dystopia in his 1927 cult film Metropolis, cinemagoers yearn to be transporting to another world. Is it a coincidence in the year of major economic downturn, immersive 3D fantasy epic, Avatar, becomes the highest grossing film of all time?

Director James Cameron’s vision was first scribbled down on paper in 1994. According to Cameron, his film could not be realised using the decade’s poor technology so only after fifteen years in the making could Cameron achieve the cinematic perfection he aspired to. Clearly, even the Academy Award winning movie connoisseur could not have predicted a financial slump, and therefore could not have purposefully exploited the needy in a clever marketing ploy.

Cameron’s history of success with ex-Box Office champion Titanic, and then the Avatar Oscar buzz sent the media into a speculative frenzy when attempting to predict its future bid for success. What is more, Avatar was released into a pool lacking in competition; small-budget competitors had been financially purged. It could even be argued, Avatar was pool of its own. Tipped as the ‘holygrail’ of 3D film and the international proliferation of 3D cinema up to Avatar’s release allowed the film to have total dominance of this novelty niche. So fundamentally the film prospered due to its visionary content nurtured by Cameron and its aesthetic novelty in the form of 3D absorption. Avatar’s success can be attributed to a desire to see a different world, witness an immersive experience and briefly escape reality. Yes, the cinema is a cheap day out but people, more than ever, require their fix of distraction.

However, films are an easy target. The dark auditorium, surround sound, engaging storyline and now 3D visuals, want the audience to be drawn into the picture. That’s the business. But escapism exists outside the multiplex. It had crept onto internet, on the white-washed walls of art galleries and adorns the city’s billboards.

It is everywhere: sport, computer games, novels, fashion, food, drugs, alcohol and even random daydreams. How have we evolved to prefer the thoughts and actions of others? To enjoy what has not happened, or never will? The philosophers would nod their head in patronising agreement and mutter something about ‘death anxiety’.

But that’s a bit dark. In fact, it might even be wrong. We are always yearning for more; a fundamental human evolutionary trait exists in the desire for education. We learn from visuals, audio, taste and touch. We like to be tried and tested, confused and stretched.

Whether that be interwoven into film and narrative, food and drink, or by simply enjoying a brief relapse into wild imagination.

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Copyright 2010. VNTD Magazine